Give Me Your Pain
by ReluctantOptimist
Summary: Ichigo cut. Grimmjow lived. The one thing they hated the most. Ichigo had Karin. Grimmjow was alone. The one thing neither could live without. Ichigo's parents were dead. Grimmjow's parents were dead. The two things that brought them together. Yaoi/Drama!
1. Prologue: Don't Rain on My Pain

_**- A/N: So I love GrimmIchi stories. I mean, I absolutely LOVE THEM! They are my favorite yaoi Bleach pairing. :) They're just so adorable. **_

_**Anyways, **_

_I'm not a perfect person  
>There's many things I wish I didn't do<br>But I continue learning  
>I never meant to do those things to you<em>

_- Hoobastank "The Reason"_

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue: Rain on My Pain<strong>

_- Sunday Night…_

It hurt.

It hurt so badly.

It was so painfully awakening.

It burned and it bled.

...it felt so good.

Dragging the end of his razor over the flesh of his forearm, moaning as he plunged it deeper until he could no longer think, only feel. He pressed it so deep into his skin until he could only feel the pleasures of pain, and he watched as his blood flowed from the scar and dripped from his fingertips into the white, porcelain sink.

His eyes rolled back in his head and his knees felt weak under the felicities. No more thoughts. No more hurting heart. No more guilt or sorrow. No more regrets—only pain. He wanted nothing but the sweet joy of pain enveloping him.

He stilled and enjoyed how his mind failed him, and how everything around him was casted in blackness. His eyes closed, and he pulled the metal away and relished in his last few seconds of ecstasy until the sensation abandoned him for another time.

Tingles rippled over his muscles, and he bemoaned a troubled breath. Once the content subsided, his eyes started to flutter open slowly. He heaved a demurred sigh as he looked down into the blood speckled sink; spots of white cloaked in crimson. He turned on the faucet, the warm water washing away evidence; washing away his blood.

Blood.

Bleed blood.

Drowning and enjoying the bleeding of his pain. His eyes were burning, but he watched it all wash away and escape down the drain.

He wished he was a cutter's blood. He wished he would wash away, escape down a drain, and be someone's crimson relief. He wasn't fit for a heart.

He didn't want one.

He didn't deserve one.

He didn't deserve a soul either, or flesh.

He wanted to be hollow…dead.

He breathed shakily, his muscles tingling as he placed a bloodied hand on the sink to hold himself up, and he looked up into the mirror. He didn't recognize the figure staring back at him. What was he? Who exactly had he become?

Orange hair.

Brown eyes.

White teeth.

Pale skin.

Pointed nose.

It was everything he remembered, but at the same time, it was nothing he recognized. All he could see was black; sweetened corruption and darkness. Black tinted the edges of his eyes, slowly taking over his sight completely.

It could've just been paranoia. It could've even possibly have been that his mind was once again failing him and he was entering the aftershock effect that sometimes came. Or it could've been from the loss of blood that was still gushing from the fresh wound down his arm and dripping into the sink and onto the floor.

He didn't know.

But he did know darkness.

Darkness.

It ate him.

His heart. His soul. His mind. His senses.

It ate everything.

No orange hair. It was black.

No brown eyes. They were black.

No pale skin. Black.

Everything was devoured. Everything obscure. Everything blackened.

He was beginning to feel lightheaded and nauseous. He stumbled backwards and sat on the edge of the tube, a red hand print marring a corner of the sink. He breathing was harsh, panting heavily, hyperventilating as the wheels in his head began to churn again, flooding him with images and memories he didn't want; covering him with blood that wasn't his.

He could taste bile rising in the back of his throat, and he fell to his knees. His bloodied hand clutched his stomach, begging for the bitterness not to come up. It would burn. It would hurt…It would feel too good.

He didn't deserve to feel good.

He begged for it not to come up, for it not to give him the satisfaction, but it did anyways. He reached out for the toilet with his other hand and threw his head into the piss bowl before he heaved up everything he ate in the last week or so.

He heaved more. The burning bitterness cut through his esophagus. It felt like blades were carving at it. He heaved up blood, his body convulsing erratically. It was hard to breath. It hurt to try. His eyes sweltered with tears, and he could feel his heart clench in his chest and his blood drenched arm spasm under his body.

_God it felt so good!_

It felt so good to hurt.

To endure.

To live pain…

But he didn't want it.

It isn't justifiable for him to have it.

Finally, after he heaved up his last meal and more blood, he panted, drained. His throat burned with a white-hot intensity. Hot tear fell from his eyes, and his body shuddered incessantly. His body was hot, and sweat sheened over his dirtied visage.

He felt weak, and fell to the side of the toilet on his back, dry heaving. His chest rose and fell as he stared up at the ceiling. The familiar blackness began to shroud the corners of his eyes again, and he felt himself slowly giving himself to the catalepsy.

He didn't tend to his wounds. He never did. Not including the few times he had at school and other odd places he went when the images of his past became too unbearable. Only then did he clean himself up, but in the security of his own psychotic abode, behind the closed doors of his room or in the bathroom, he allowed himself to drown in his own misery, uncaring.

Like now, he just lied there, falling into nothingness, and uncaring of anything, or anyone. A soft click resounded, and he knew the door opened. Without even looking he knew who it was…who it always was. It was the same person every time. It just never seemed to change. Ever.

Karin always found him. She was always the one that saw him lain across the floor in a bloodied mess, his clothes sticking to his sweaty body and tear streaks staining his cheeks. It was always her who found him. No one else, and silently, he wondered why?

It was a rhetorical question…he knew why it was only her. It was because she was the only one there, the only one left.

No one else.

"Ichigo?" He usually stern voice had turned timid a long time ago. Her once powerful dark orbs, softened now…weak. Her usual scowl replaced with a permanent frown…always. He heard her dejected sigh as she once again witnessed him sprawled across the floor, soaked in his own blood and bile.

"…Karin…" He rasped into the darkness. Then he was subdued, and taken away by it.

"…again," she whispered, sighing. "…Ichi-niichan…"

**X:~/~:X**

White. Everything was white. It smelled of plastic and used paraphilia...and of melancholy. Bright lights.

It was clean, so very clean.

White…pure white.

It was a contradiction to life for one place to be so white, to look so pure, and that's why he hated this place with an undying passion. He would always fucking hate this place. In a way, he was glad he'd never have to come back after today, because today was the day it all ended. Nothing was ever so white and pure looking. Not in his life, and it made him mad, but he didn't show it.

He hardly ever showed how he felt.

How he felt was hardly ever a factor to anyone, and that included himself, because he hardly ever felt anything besides anger and pain. Everything else was a foreign concept to him.

What the fuck was happiness?

What in the hell did love feel like?

Who would ever want to know what peace of mind felt like?

All that shit was fucking pointless.

He groaned as he stood next to the bed. It was white too. It burned on the inside just to stand as close as he was to it, but he did anyways.

He stood on the bedside of a green-haired woman. His eyes ran over her now fragile figure, expressionless. Her natural sea green hair was sickly and sprouting grey strands. Her hair used to be darker, greener, and beautiful, like his sister's, but not anymore.

Her once lively complexion was dulled with her age, stress, and sickness. And her once stern and robust physique was thin, fragile, and weak from the constant medications, and the constant puking. He stared at her. He wanted to be sympathetic, but couldn't. It would've done nothing.

She had a heart disease, and had been fighting it for years. She didn't cry when she found out. No one did.

She never cried.

But she was crying now.

"Grimm…jow?" she wheezed, a tear sliding down her pale cheek. Grimmjow hummed, his eyes still revealing his indifference. He noticed her twitching her stiff knuckles and took her smaller hand in his larger one.

"Grimmjow…baby," she rasped, another tear escaping. He didn't answer, only listened. She smiled a closed-mouth smile. It was small. "You're such a sweet boy…So sweet. Takin' care of mama like ya have." He squeezed her hand lightly. He could've crushed it if he wanted to, she was so fragile. "…you…you know mama loves you…you know that, don't ya sweetheart?"

He hummed.

"Yeah…" she breathed. Her petite body shuddered when she sighed. He leaned down so that she could cup his cheek in her other hand. Her soft hazel eyes stared passionately into his. "An' mama knows ya love her too." Grimmjow descried her lips curve down into a frown, but he said nothing.

Her hand fell away from his cheek.

"…I jus' wished Nel felt the same." He contemplated saying something. He hadn't spoken in days, but the girl bellowing in the next room was sound enough. Her cries were heart wrenching. Her screams were breathtaking though…stunned to know someone could scream so loud, and lament so much at once.

His mother choked up a ragged cough. He knew she didn't have much time left.

"Grimmjow…Grimmy?" She offered him another closed-mouth smile. He offered her silence. "…I don't…have much time left, ya hear? But I need ya ta do somethin' for me…ya hear me sweetheart?" He waited. Then he felt her smaller hand squeeze his, and he looked down at it before looking back up and noting her solemn countenance. "Grimmy…I need you ta be somebody…be somebody fa yerself, and yer sister…I want ya ta become somebody, and leave this place…and take Nel with you…ya hear me?"

He felt her hand squeezing his with all the might he presumed she had left. She would die shortly if this was all she had left. "Ya listen ta ya mama, and you go an' do somethin' fer yerself and for yer sister…you understand me?" He continued to stare. She would die soon. Maybe in another hour or so. "Don't you be like da rest of dem fools…out der in 'em streets, ya hear? Go back ta school Grimmjow, and ya make somethin' of ya self…ya took care of mama enough, she don't need ya no more now…not where she's goin'."

He nodded stiffly. She would die soon. If not in an hour, then within minutes. He figured he should probably tell her he loved her, and would miss her before she was even gone. But he didn't.

He waited.

He stared at her.

He listened.

He always just listened.

"Jus'…jus' take ya sista wit'chu…don't leave her here…not by herself. Those streets too dangerous fer her…an' when ya git her back, hug her for meh…hug her real tight, an' ya tell her I love her, even if she don't love meh…an' ya tell her I'll be watchin' ova her too, even if she don't want me to." She smiled again, but it looked strained. Her hazel eyes gleamed, and her tears started to fall again.

Grimmjow didn't realize it, but tears were also rolling down his own cheeks. She giggled, hoarse. "Don't you go worrin' 'bout mama na boy…gotta be a man…head up ya hear, and ya dry them tears." He didn't. He just stared, detached. "Everything's gone be alright baby…I just wished I coulda gave ya more, Grimmjow…ya really deserved more." She cupped his cheek in her hand again. "…such a sweet, sweet boy ya turnt out ta be Grimmy…couldn've asked for a better son."

She choked up another ragged cough. "…Lord have mercy," she muttered. Then she focused her eyes back onto his. They stared at one another for a short while. "…C'mon, give mama a hug." He did, and embraced her as tight as he could without harming her delicate frame. "I'll always love you, no matter what," she whispered softly into his ear, her hold on him as tight as her muscles would allow. "…And you'll always be mah little man…no matter how big ya grow."

Grimmjow's tears never ceased. They just fell silently. "I'll be watchin' ova you too ya know...Na ya stop cryin' an' do what mama told you…go be somebody…be a man…make me proud." He pulled away from her, and looked down at her smiling face. He leaned down again so that she could cup his face in her hand.

She would die soon. If it wasn't within the next few minutes, then it would be in the next few seconds. She stroked his cheek, sweetly humming his favorite lullaby, and he fell into the touch and closed his eyes. "…Such a handsome boy…ya gonna give me some handsome gran' chil'ren too, hm?" She stroked his face, humming affectionately, her eyes fluttering close, slowly. "…Such a good boy ya turnt out ta be…a good…good…boy…"

Her hand fell away, and her other went limp in his large hand. Her heart monitor droned, monotone, flat-lined. Her heart had finally quitted. She had finally given up her suffering. She had finally moved on, and Grimmjow sniffled once and quickly did what his mama told him to do before and dried his puffy eyes.

That was it.

He was done crying.

That was the last of his tears for the rest of life.

He didn't have anything else to cry for.

Nothing else…no one else mattered anymore.

Hesitantly, he dropped her hand from his, and stepped away from her lifeless body. Doctors and nurses scurried into the room in a professional panic, jumping this way and that, and Grimmjow just watched…and watched…and watched until he could watch no more, and he walked out.

She was gone.

It was a good thing.

He didn't need her back.

He only wanted her back.

She wouldn't come back though.

Not when it was finally over.

All her heartache.

All her regrets.

All her suffering.

It was all _finally_ over, and she could now rest.

He continued to saunter down the brightly, white-lit corridor, a few bustling nurses and doctors brushing past him to get to his mother's room. Sirens went off, orders were being shouted, metal clanked and clanged, and footsteps were scuttling urgently. But even in all the commotion, the only sound he could hear was the moans and screams of that one girl. She was still screaming, still lamenting, and silently…he wondered why?

It was a rhetorical question…he knew why. It was because she actually cared. She actually gave a damn that one of her loved ones was in ICU, dying—or perhaps even already dead. She actually loved. She could actually feel emotions. Grimmjow would envy her, if he could ever know what it felt like to care.

Grimmjow reached the end of the corridor and the transparent doors slid open for him. He stepped outside.

It was raining.

He hated the rain.

It rained the night his grandfather died. It rained the night Neliel stormed off and left the family in shambles. It rained the day his father decided to become an alcoholic junky. It rained the evening he found out his mother had an irrecoverable heart condition and only a few months, that turned into years, to live. And now it rained the night that same heart condition finally killed and took his mother away from him.

He hated the rain.

_Hated it!_

But he sighed, resigned.

He dug into the pockets of his black hoodie—it had a few holes in it, but it would do. He had nothing else anyways—and pulled a cigarette from his box of squares and his liter. He lit the tip, and took a long drag of its poison, and blew the smoke out his nose.

Grimmjow pulled his hood over his head, took another drag, and walked out into the world, finally alone…in the rain.

Rain.

Rain washed away evidence…like water down a drain.

Rain always brought him pain, but with any luck, tonight it might just do him a favor, and get him hit by a bus…or maybe two…

Rain.

…how he'd love it then.

* * *

><p><strong>This is one long prologue. Lol!<strong>

**But anyhow, this idea (originally) came to me from the wonderful **_**The Petulant Prodigy**_** after I read his/her stories, and also after listening to the song **_**"The Reason" by Hoobastank**_** (you should listen to it if you haven't already. It's awesome!). **

**But **_**The Petulant Prodigy's**_** work is amazing. I mean, utterly amazing. The angst is so realistic in his/her fics that I thought that I should give it a try since I proclaim myself to be a rather explicit angst writer. So I figured I'd write about real life angst tales and issues that actually occur in everyday life, but on a more exaggerated level.**

**But tell me how that's going, okay? And to do that, I'd appreciate it if you all reviewed, yes? Please and thank you! :)**

**Oh, and this will be the only warning I give you all: If you cannot handle gruesome and really dark content, then you should probably leave and not come back, because shit is only going to get real from here. Lol! But if you can handle it, I welcome you to read the next chapter. **

**Express your thoughts in a review. Thanks! :)**


	2. A Broken Somebody

_I'm not a perfect person  
>There's many things I wish I didn't do<br>But I continue learning  
>I never meant to do those things to you<em>

_- Hoobastank "The Reason"_

* * *

><p><strong><span>A Broken Somebody<span>**

_- Weeks later…Wednesday._

It was raining.

Ichigo sat in his first hour class; bored, tired, and inattentive. The English instructor, Ukitake-sensei, was lecturing about something that was unimportant to him. Despite his bad and bloody habit, Ichigo prided himself (to a degree) at being an exceptional student. In his class he had the third highest percentile; Uryuu Ishida had the second highest, and the redheaded genius known as, Szayelaporro Grantz, had the highest grades in their class.

But third wasn't bad. He could deal with it. But truthfully, he only cared about his schoolwork and performance for Karin's sake, because he wanted to take her away from everything that ever caused her pain. That reason and that reason alone was why he applied himself so vigorously. Karin was all that mattered to him. If it weren't for her, then he could care less if he were at the very bottom of the percentile list. He truly believed in his heart that he was a lost cause, but he knew Karin still had a chance, and that was reason enough.

He had no friends—_none!_ Or at least, he didn't know anyone he could call a friend, only partial acquaintances, such as, Chad, Tatsuki, Orihime, Uryuu, Shinji, Keigo, and two new acquaintances known as Renji and Rukia who he and Karin met previously under what could only be rendered as: unscrupulous circumstances…

The only ones that shared his first hour with him were Chad and Tatsuki.

But he cared about none of them.

He acted like he did for their sakes. He didn't want them to try and intermeddle into his life and start offering _this_ type of mental psychiatric hospital and _that_ kind of self-harming prevention asylum.

He didn't need all of that crap.

That's why he acted as though he cared, for them, so they wouldn't worry…and he did it for Karin to. She couldn't afford to loss anyone else, not after everything she's already lost.

He didn't _want_ to care about them though. He didn't even want to act like he did, let alone _know _them, because anything and everything he ever even remotely started caring about always had a routine tendency of being taken away from him.

He was sometimes overwhelmed with a feeling of astonishment that Karin survived as long as she did. But he feared because he knew that she would sooner rather than later be disappearing like the rest of them, and he couldn't prevent the sense that it would be of his doings. He hurried and endeavored to rid himself of such self-allegations though, before the need to relieve himself arose under his skin.

The rabid thoughts that crossed his mind were usually responsible for the razor being in his wallet and at quick retrieval. It was a, "just in case of emergencies" supplementary, should he ever need to quickly alleviate the pained panic that swelled in his gut and overtook his person from his reckless reveries. But he hurried and pushed the feeling aside before it overwhelmed him. He decided to try and pay attention to at least try and appease the growing apprehension inside him.

Ichigo didn't fret over his thoughts, or rather; he tried not to for too long. It wouldn't change anything. He would still be damned in a world without parents or his baby sister. He had Karin, but he was supposed to have had another.

Her name was going to be Yuzu.

Karin had named her before she was born.

But along with his mother, she was taken away from him.

Dead.

He gritted his teeth. _Damnit…focus._ He was allowing his thoughts to run too far, and desperately he endeavored to keep them chained and buried. But he failed. He couldn't block out all that he saw, all that he remembered, and neither could he forget how it felt when you literally felt your heart beating at your chest, filled with panic and begging to escape agony.

One image after another troubled and skewered a piece of his being.

He shut his eyes tight. _Stop!...stop stop stop…_He couldn't. They wouldn't stop, and he couldn't make them stop. His mother's mangled and ravished body lied at his eight year old feet, soaked in her and her unborn child's blood, her eyes stretched open as humanly possible, staring lifelessly into his wide, swollen and red eyes.

He clutched his head. _Stop!...Please stop this!...I can't take it…_Before he could even realize it he was reaching for his back pocket for his wallet, but stopped when he heard Tatsuki whisper, concerned, "You okay, Ichigo?" He stopped himself, and in another desperate attempt, he willed his thoughts to lie dormant—shackled away in the depths of his despair, like they ought to be.

He nodded stiffly.

She didn't look convinced though. She stared at him longer than what was necessary, her eyes moving shiftily over every contour of his face. But after a while, and with much incredulity shown across her countenance, she nodded back and focused on the lecture Ukitake was giving.

Ichigo heaved a shaky breath, and then another to placate the increasingly distraught mental afflictions. He moved his hand away from his "in case of emergency" razor.

He didn't need it.

He could survive a few more hours…at least until school ended.

It was just one day…

He felt his chest clench and his heart lurch behind his sternum.

It was just one more day in hell that he had to endure.

…just another day in the pits of perdition, damned to a life of pain and misguided hatred towards any and everything that didn't—_couldn't _understand what real pain was.

Ichigo didn't fret over it.

He wouldn't.

It would've changed nothing if he had.

He would still be damned in this world and even possibly in the next, forced to live without his mother, without his father…without Yuzu.

_Just a few more hours._ Ichigo gnashed his teeth. The razor in his back pocket flashed across his mind…_I don't need to…Karin begged me to stop…for one day, just one day. I have to stop…I have to quit for her…I have to quit…for her._ His father's face crossed his mind; drenched in his own blood and beaten beyond recognition, his forehead revealing a thick chunk of white meat while his right cheekbone protruded through his skin.

Ichigo felt his stomach lurched, and bile rise in the back of his throat.

…one day was all she asked…just one day...

His blood itched.

**X:~/~:X**

Grimmjow was at home. He should've been at school, but he was home.

He was in his room and on his bed staring contemplatively at the ceiling, watching the paint peel away, a lit cigarette between his lips and one hand behind his head while the other draped carelessly over the side of the mattress.

He took a drag of his cigarette

It had been three weeks since his mother died.

Three weeks since her dying request that he went back to school and made something of himself.

Instead though, this was how he chose to spend his days: just staring up at the ceiling.

He always stared…was always thinking to himself.

He blew the smoke out his nose.

He hadn't been to school in over a month, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to go back. What was the point? What the hell was there for him anyways? His mom wanted him to go out and be somebody. _"I need you ta be somebody…be somebody for yer sister and for yerself…"_

He sucked more addictive ash.

…

… …

… … …

He exhaled the smoky fumes from his orifice.

_How?_ He growled to himself, glaring at the shedding wall paint.

How the hell was he supposed to go and be somebody?

How could he do it if Nel couldn't?

She was the smart one between the two of them. She was always so smart and beautiful…but not now. Now she was just some fucking ugly ass whore, who was being tricked by her anonymous pimp. He hadn't seen or heard from her in over six months. There was no telling where the fuck she was. She was probably dead. Not that it mattered now anyways.

Neliel used to be so smart, so beautiful. His mother always said that she would give her smart and beautiful grandchildren, hell she probably already had a few grandchildren running around in the world some goddamn where. Who knew if Nel was smart enough to use protection nowadays?

But Grimmjow knew when it all started. It was as soon as his sister met that one bitch whose name he could never remember. Afterwards, Nel just started spreading her legs for any and every goddamn thing that had a fucking pulse, some cash, and a dick. Having a dick probably wasn't even a requirement for her.

He clenched his teeth around his cigarette, snapping the rest of it in half, a snarl eliciting past his lips. He pinched out the subtle flame glowing around the broken nicotine stick that had fallen against his chest.

He made no attempts to wipe it off…

Grimmjow didn't remember the girl's name that ostensibly influenced Nel because he only met her once, and the whole time she kept making passes at him, and he kept, quite literally, pushing her away.

He didn't like her. _At all!_ She had two pigtails in her head, and constantly played with an annoying ass yo-yo, raveling and unraveling it every five fucking seconds.

He snarled again, and glared harder at the wall. He was getting frustrated, his dangling fist balled tightly on the side of the bed. Nel had finished highschool. Everyone thought she was going to be the one to make it out of this place if not anyone, but she turned out to be just another fucking failure to life…just like the man sprawled over the floor in the other room.

_If she couldn't make it, then how the fuck am I supposed to? _She was the smart one, brilliant in nearly everything she did, and apparently that included sucking dick. "I ain't fuckin' smart," he scolded, growling. _How the hell am I supposed ta make it out of this if she couldn't…just who the fuck did ma want me ta be?_

"Gri-Grimm!" He heard a rough and ragged cough call him, but he ignored it. He knew who it was. It was the same fucker who had been too damn high from his Angel Dust and E-pills to go down to the hospital to see his brittle and dying wife. It was the same fucker who decided that his drugs were more important than his family. It was the very same fucker who refused to be by his wife's side during her last few moments of life.

It was his father, Dietrich Jeagerjaques…a lowlife bastard.

"Grimm!" He sounded a lot more pathetic, desperate.

Fuck him.

He could choke on broken glass, and die on it a thousand times over for all he gave a shit. He wished it was him who died instead. His mother should've had more time, but Grimmjow felt that this man, his so-called "father", should've died before he was ever even born. It would have made life a little easier to deal with. The fucker was just in the way.

"_Grimmjow!_" He was mad now. Grimmjow scoffed, but languidly he stood and walked out the door and down the hall anyways. He opened the door to what used to be his parent's room. It was _his_ room now, and he was just a piece nothing.

The sight before his eyes wasn't surprising. It pissed him off, but it was in no way surprising. His father was shirtless, a third of a bottle of booze in his hand, another third of it washing the grimy floor. Open bottles of Vodka, Hennessy, Jack Daniels, Whiskey, and Gin were scattered across the room and over the floor, some empty, others not, molding and staining the floorboards.

His father was pathetic. Just a disgrace to every human being alive and dead, as he was sprawled across the floor, his bed only a few feet away, but he guessed that he was too fucking high or drunk to realize it.

Grimmjow held a growl in the back of his throat as he glowered at this man—no, this _boy_.

His infant father.

He was whatever the hell he wanted to be, but in no one whatsoever could he _ever_ be considered a man. Men provided, men protected, men cared for their wives, for their children, for more than just themselves. He was no man. In no way imaginable could his name and that word _ever_ be used in the same sentence.

But what made matters worse was the fact that Grimmjow couldn't deny that he was the spitting image of his father. Nearly identical in every way possible; from the natural blue hair they shared to their similar bulked frames. But his father's hair was longer than his, coming to the middle of his back, while his only kissed the blades of his shoulders.

But Grimmjow was bigger than him now though, since nowadays his father relied so much on his drugs as a means to relieve his stress; he allowed his body to gradually deteriorate, thinning into a weak, pale man. Grimmjow didn't.

His father was still quite huge, and could probably take out a few smaller guys, just not him though. Not anymore.

Working out and sweating, feeling the burning and contractions of his muscles was how Grimmjow relieved his bitterness towards life. He'd workout until every muscle in his body burned and every tendon was torn or sprang if he had to.

Pain.

The word was peace in his world. The word, the feeling, was considered peace in his world. It was his way to escape. The only way his mind would be distracted enough so that he didn't have to remember and relive the toils and poverties his life had undertaken.

Pain was a magical word.

A blanket for his sorrows.

A wondrous stress reliever.

Grimmjow could kick his father's ass right now if he wanted to, but there would be no point. He's probably too drunk or high to even realize he was getting his ass kicked, so it wouldn't matter if he wouldn't feel anything.

"What?" Grimmjow bit his tongue, regressing eminent rage. He wouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction of pissing him off.

He was laid on his stomach, and then craned his head to the side, his brows furrowing immediately. "Wha' da fuck are you doin' in he're?" He slurred, glaring. He was drunk, and when he was drunk he was brutally blunt and talked shit for days. Grimmjow clenched his teeth, already knowing how he was going to begin insulting him. He always did.

"Git tha fuck out ya useless good fa nothin' retard…" Grimmjow gnashed his teeth, restraining himself from repeatedly pounding his fist into his face. This was how it always went down.

His father would either be drunk or high, or both. He'd call Grimmjow in just to insult him, and then finally, after some odd minutes of endeavored verbal emasculation, he'd say what it was he wanted, if he wanted anything at all.

"Why couldn't ya be smart like ya sista?" He spat his apparent reproach, and rolled himself over onto his back. Grimmjow just stood stiffly, gnashing his teeth and clenching and unclenching his fist. "…so wha' if she ah whor'…at leas' she ah good ho', an' at leas' she made it ou'…" He staggered to his feet, swaying comatosely. "…bu' chu…ya ain't gon' be _shit_ in life boy. Nothin' bu' a gan'ban'er o ah pimp…or a drug deal'ah."

Grimmjow clenched his fist tight, his nostrils flaring when he breathed. The drunken blunette pointed to him, the alcohol sloshing in its bottle and he tottered over, swaying before catching himself upright. "…ya ain't gon be _shit_ Grimm, might as well fuckin' quit na, ya just ah hopeless ass seed," he snorted, disgruntled. "…the bitch shoulda aborted ya ass when I told her to, th—"

Grimmjow punched the doorframe, cracks fissuring over the wooden frame where he hit it. "_What the fuck do you want?_" He sneered, glowering. He ducked when he noted his father throw his bottle of Jack Daniels at him. It shattered when it hit the wall, booze sliding down the already mold-covered wall.

"Ya sista just had ta go ou' and fuck shit up for me…wha' da fuck can I do wit' ah retard like you? Ya ass can't giv' meh _shit_, 'cuz ya ain't gon' neva _be_ _shit_!" He yelled back at him, leering. "Ya both jus' useless as hell!"

It took all he had. Everything coursing through his body told him to hit him, to beat him black and blue, to beat him until he was unfamiliar to anyone, until he was no longer the spitting image of him.

But he didn't.

He wouldn't.

He never did.

"Give up…ya ain't gon' amount ta shit…ya just gon' be anotha screw up like ya dumbass sista." He was honest when he was drunk, but his honesty was going to be the cause of him getting his ass kicked one of these days. "You ain't leavin' this place…you gon' fuckin' _die_ he're like tha resta us. Ya seen ya momma didn't chu?…well you gon' be jus' like her ass and you gone _die here_!" Grimmjow felt his hands bleed from how tight his fist was clenched at his side. "Ya momma couldn't be shit…and if ya sista couldn't be shit in life then _you_ _definitely_ ain't gon' be shit…ya was a fuckin' failure from da start." He scoffed. "…ya weak ass…"

"_Shut the fuck! Up_!" Grimmjow finally yelled back. "Just because you ain't neva did a damn thing wit'cho life don't mean I'm 'bouta be the same fucked up piece of shit you are!" He punched the door again and turned around and stormed off, his drunkard father slinging a slur of obscenities and demeaning words at him all the while.

"Git'cha ass back he're boy! I ain't finished yet!" His father scurried drunkenly after him.

Grimmjow grabbed his black hoodie and stuffed his feet into his light blue and black chucks at the door, his dad staggering down the hallway after him. "Ya hear me talkin' ta yo dumbass…_Ya illiterate piece of shit!_ What the fuck ya gone be if ya can't even _fuckin_ _read_ _or write_?"

"You can suck my _dick_!" Grimmjow tore the door open, "Fuckin' drunk ass bastard," and he slammed the front door closed behind him. He thought he had heard his father yell something about having a fagot for a son and a failure, but he didn't care. He was already gone.

Grimmjow paced up and down random streets, thinking, not exactly knowing where it was his feet were taking him. But now that he thought about it, he guessed he was wrong. His father's name could be used in the same sentence as the word man…

Dietrich Jeagerjaques was nothing but a manhole full of shit, liquor and every narcotic being trafficked on the streets!

He was a deadbeat father who would never amount to even vaguely understanding what a man was about, and Grimmjow would be damned if he turned out the same way, spitting image or not, he was fucking better than his father in every way.

Grimmjow was more of a man now than his father would ever hope to be or has ever been in his entire life. He was stronger than him, smarter than him, and now, he was determined, motivated. That alone was something his father could never claim to have been in his whole entire existence because he wasn't motivated by anything.

He wasn't motivated in finding a job when the electricity was turned off two years ago, and again three months ago. He wasn't motivated to be better than what he was when, at the age of six, every time Grimmjow opened the fridge there was ever hardly anything to eat inside. And he wasn't motivated when his own daughter, the one and only daughter he had such high hopes for turned into a late night, early morning prostitute for any and everybody to ravish and abuse.

He was never determined to do anything. He always waited on others to do it for him—more accurately, his mother. She was the one who found work when bills needed to be paid and food was needed to furnish the refrigerator. His mom was the one who went looking for Nel three years ago for the first three months after she disappeared. She searched every day and every night trying to find her little girl and bring her back, but she never could.

His mom did all that shit.

_All of it!_ And what the fuck has his dad done? Not a goddamn thing. _Ever._ She deserved better than him, so much better. But she always said she loved him, and that was when Grimmjow concluded that love was fucking dumb as hell and he never wanted to have any part in it.

But his mom loved him too. She told him so, seconds before she died, and he believed her. And he knew that she knew that he loved her too…

_Love_. He thought, and pondered over how long he had been loveless._ Three weeks._ That's how long it's been since she died, and that's how long it's been since the feeling of knowing that he was loved by someone had faded.

His mother was his world, even though his world dangled from a thin line just above the depths of hell, she was the one keeping him up, always. But now, who would? She'd given him—_them—_ so much, _too_ much in fact and she never asked for anything in return the entire time, except that he did something meaningful with his life.

Grimmjow knew he wasn't as smart as Nel, and he knew that his mother knew that, but for her to ask that he did something not only for himself, but for Nel too must've meant that she believed in him. She always did. Nel was smarter and was the one who inherited the good looks and everyone knew it. So much success was expectant from her, but unlike everyone else, his mom would always tell him how handsome he was, and how he was such a good boy and smart just like his sister.

He wasn't, but his mom thought so, and he believed her.

He always believed her.

What were his reasons not too?

He had none.

All she'd given, and all she asked in return was that he made something of himself, for himself, for Neliel, and he would. If she believed he could, then he would. It was no longer a question—still so many doubts though, but no longer a question. He would, at the very least, give her the one thing in her life that she asked for even if it killed him to.

It wasn't like he'd ever given her a Birthday card. Mother's Day flew by every year without him ever giving her flowers or even a cheap two dollar teddy bear. Her Christmas's were dull. Neither he nor anyone else (including her husband) gave her anything, and she never even asked for anything. But he hoped that if he at least tried to be somebody, it would somehow make up for everything she never had, everything he'd never given.

He hoped that somehow it would.

He thought of his father, and his brows were forced into a furrow. "He thinks I ain't gone be shit?" Grimmjow growled under his breath. He leered at the ground as he walked. "…we'll see about that…I'm gone be somebody_._" He thought of his mother.

He didn't know who, or even how he was going to do it, but he was going to be some-goddamn-body. No one was going to tell him he couldn't. Not when his mother believed that he could. Plain and fucking simple.

And fuck everyone who ever tries or has told him he wasn't going to make anything of himself. Fuck all of them, especially _that_ asshole. He fucking hoped when he died that he burned in Hell. Perhaps then he'd be happy suffering with his real family that loved him just the fucking way he was; a fucking demon just like the rest of them. But Grimmjow hoped he suffered a thousand times worse, a million if God was on his side.

He was going to make something himself, he decided, and he was going to get out of that shithole that was proclaimed to be his home. He had no reason to be there anymore. Nothing good ever happened there, only bad memories lurked the halls and grim covered walls. He was going to get the hell out of there even if that meant dying, because he could.

The only question left now is: who? Who was he going to be?

Then he concluded with himself...

_…somebody…_

And he pulled his hood over his head, finally realizing that it was raining.

**X:~/~:X**

Lunch.

Ichigo ditched school during lunch. He couldn't stand being there any longer, and he walked straight out the front door. No one would stop him. They never did.

It was cold out, and still raining, but he only had his usual brown pleather jacket. It was the month of December, but without the expectant flurries of snow for the first time in years. Instead it seemed to be replaced by the heavy showers of hard, thick rain.

Ichigo shifted the thin jacket over his shoulders before donning his bag over his back. Then he stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and began walking the two miles home.

Walking through the door of his and Karin's unanimated abode, he dropped his bag by the door and shrugged off his jacket before hanging it on one of the wooden coat hooks. A trail of water followed behind him as he sauntered into the kitchen, rain dripping from his hair and down his face.

He grabbed a glass from the cupboard over the sink and filled it to the brim with water from the tap, and sipped the murky liquid, a metallic tang lingering on his palate. He leaned against the countertop, his water in one hand while his mind sprinted, ceaseless, careless.

His reminiscent was thumping in the back of his head.

Pounding.

Beating to try and surface, to try and torment him. He forced them back, endeavored as he took another swallow of the tepid liquid, the copper taste serving as a temporary distraction from the morbid thoughts. He made an effort to concentrate on something else, anything else.

His face was numb from the cold rain.

He hadn't noticed before.

His fingers were stiff too. Had they gotten frost bite?

The walls were white…titanium, and the kitchen table was unstable on a too short wooden leg.

There were dirtied dishes in the sink.

He would have to clean them later.

Thick rain smacked against the windows and shook the shingles on the roof. It was loud. Why was it so damn loud? As each second passed, the sound only seemed to amplify. Why was it raining so hard?

The house was quiet…

As quiet as it often was.

Karin was at school.

He was alone…

_They_ were alone in their quiet home…in their empty abode.

He remembered when silence was bliss, but now it only terrified him. Wondering in useless silence terrified him now.

_The air was stilled that dreaded day._

_Then there was a scream, and then another._

_Shadowy figures against a brick wall thrashed and moaned._

_Perturbing moans rippled the air and echoed down the dark alleyway._

_Soft whimpering and bellows resounded, begging for the darkened figures to quit their incessant probing._

_Torturous cries pierced in the dark and clouded skies, the air thick, murky and smelled of hot sewage. It burned his nose._

_There was more thrashing_

_…more begging._

_…more screams perforating the once silent night, and then a final choked and strangled cry before the shadow illumined across the wall fell dead to the ground._

His grip tightened around his glass and he took another shaky sip, trying his damnedest to suppress and just forget unwanted memories. He refused to remember, and his eyes searched manically for anything else to serve as a distraction.

The garbage was almost full, brimming to the top with trash.

The plastic would tear soon if it wasn't taken out.

_He smelled plastic along with the foul stench of humanly waste…and blood—so much blood. The plastic smell was a garbage bag, a black plastic garbage bag sodden with unsightly and bloody remains. The crimson splotches splattered across the bag belonged to his father._

_There were two bags._

_Blood covered them both._

_In the dark alley, sheltered behind a green dumpster, Karin sobbing softly into his side, he unforgettably remembered fear cradling his very essence. He could taste it on his tongue as he reached out a hand and pulled back the plastic—_

_No!_ He squeezed his eyes shut. "…I don't want to remember…" He pleaded with himself. He wouldn't be able to take it. He wouldn't be strong enough. He never was. But his mind was insistent.

_He tore back the bloodied bags and there his mother lied, dead, unblinkingly staring up at him, her orange hair splayed across the ground and saturated in thick scarlet secretion. Then he tore away the other bag and saw…something._

_It was a mess._

_It was a face._

_It was sliced._

_Beaten beyond recognition, but discerning the hair and goatee, he knew it was his father._

_It could've only been him._

Tears streamed from his eyes then, and silent, choked sobs escaped him, just as they did now as he stood wide eyed, scatterbrained as he recalled the vivid images tearing his soul apart. Hot tears enlivened his numbed visage, and broken glass lied haphazardly across the floor, unknowingly having dropped the glass somewhere in the middle of his mental despondency.

He grabbed his head in both his hands, his body slouched over, convulsing as he harked back unwelcome memories of that day.

_There was blood, so much blood, _everywhere_! His breath was caught his in throat. He was choking on tears and fear as his eyes ran over his parents faces, permanently etching the horrid scene in his memory forever._

He clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes tighter, his nails digging into his head as he tried to appease his swelling apprehension. "I don't…want to remember," he breathed shakily, "…I can't!" He cried behind his clenched teeth, but the thoughts didn't conciliate, instead they rushed forward quickly before he was able to shut them out.

One after another.

Restless.

"Ahh!" He howled, painfully clawing his nails into his head. "_I don't want to fucking remember anymore! Leave me alone!_" He screamed at the top of his lungs. His mind raced on its own accord, resurfacing the almost tangible remembrance of his mother's suffering screams as she was being gluttonously ravaged and violently raped.

…_stop! Stop! _"_PLEASE! STOP IT!_" He screamed.

…they stopped…

His eyes opened, wide, and he was bent over staring sightlessly at the floor. His breathing was labored, harsh. His body was cold. He didn't know if it was the rain from earlier, or from the blood flowing through his veins.

His body was trembling, his muscles tight under his skin while his nails were still lodged into his head, a thin line of blood discoloring in his orange hair. His head was beginning to splinter painfully, and he could feel a migraine forming behind his skull.

He took a deep breath to calm himself, but it only summoned shudders to rake through his body. He was hurting. Not physically, but every other way; mentally, psychologically, and most of all, emotionally. But he didn't know how to stop it.

Ichigo's wide eyes blinked until he was able to perceive the broken shards of glass littering the floor by his feet. He didn't know how to stop it, but he knew how to relieve himself of the pain if only for a few seconds, and instinctively he reached for the longest piece of broken glass he could find.

He stopped himself before he grabbed it though, remembering Karin, remembering what he promised her nearly two weeks ago. He shook his head. "…I can't…I promised her I wouldn't." He closed his eyes again and stood upright, and drew his hand back to his chest. _One day_, he thought. _Just one day was all she asked for…_

She just asked for one day when she didn't have to see her brother sprawled across a floor drowning in his own blood and choking up vomit. For just one day when she didn't have to clean and bandage a self-inflicted scar, or scrub the floors or soiled carpets of the fluids he left behind. One day where she didn't have to see emptiness teeming in his eyes. For just one day where she didn't have to lay awake stroking his hair until he awoke from his unconsciousness and then had to watch over him until he actually fell asleep from fatigue just to make sure he wouldn't hurt himself again before trudging off to her own bed. She asked for just one day, just one, that he be the stronger older brother she knew he could be and used to be, if not for her, then for himself.

He promised that he would and could be the resolute older brother that his mother and father wanted him to be. His father always said that his name meant "to protect one thing" and right then, Karin begged that that one thing be himself. He had promised her he would be that brother again, but he wasn't.

Every day since nearly two weeks ago, he'd been cutting behind her back and cleaning the mess himself before she found him. The strain was too much to bear, too much for one person to handle alone. He needed refuge from his past, from the memories that haunted him. He needed release. He needed to bleed.

To cry.

Cut.

To feel again.

Karin didn't see what he saw. He was glad she didn't, but he needed the pain to remind himself that he was still alive. That he was awake, that he was here, that none of this was a dream. It was all real. But he needed to escape it, if only for a few seconds.

Every day since she asked him to stop, he hadn't, but instead he continued to, discreetly, drag his razorblade across his skin, feeling the release of his pain. But he wouldn't tell her that. He couldn't tell her that. It would only grind her tiny remnants of rationality and feelings into dust to know that he couldn't give her just one day. It would prove just how far he had fallen, and how irreparable he had become. He couldn't let her see him like that.

Ichigo turned around and away from the broken glass, and he gripped the edge of the counter. "Shit." He had to give her at least one day. At least one. She was all he had left, and vice-versa. He could do it for her. He would do anything for her.

Images of his father's lifeless carcass sketched itself into his mind again; his goateed face grotesque, his skin as cold as ice, and his blood splattered across everything. Tremors rushed through his body and his arms quivered against the countertop. His heart clenched in his chest.

His feet shifted, glass crunching beneath his wet boots, and he breathed unevenly. His body shook again. It ached for release. He heard the crunching of the glass underneath his feet again when he shifted. _I won't. I won't. I won't. _"Fuck…I can't." He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and tried concentrating on his breathing.

He couldn't lose it.

He wouldn't allow himself to lose.

He refused.

_Breathe Ichigo. Just breathe. _His knees began to buckle under the pressure of his body, and instead of leveling his breaths; he heaved sharp, hollow gasps. His entire body quaked; uncontrolled and incessant. _Breathe damn it!_ He berated to himself.

He opened his eyes, and noted the shattered edges of his broken glass in his peripheral. The coarse ache that boiled in his blood and surged through his veins trembled beneath his skin. Eventually, it managed to claw its way to the surface and a cold sweat broke across his forehead.

He didn't want to, but he needed to.

He didn't want to, but he needed to.

He didn't want to, but he needed to.

He didn't—"Shit." He breathed brokenly.

He lost…

* * *

><p><strong>Beta'd by the wonderful <em>Warrior Nun<em>!**

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	3. Memories and Fairytale Pages

_I'm not a perfect person  
>There's many things I wish I didn't do<br>But I continue learning  
>I never meant to do those things to you<em>

_- Hoobastank "The Reason"_

* * *

><p><strong>Memories and Fairytale Pages <strong>

…_Next day…Thursday._

The rain had stopped, but the air was arctic.

Again Ichigo sat, staring disinterestedly at Ukitake-sensei while he lectured about this piece of art from this author and that other piece of exhilarating literature from that other author that Ichigo cared nothing about.

Ichigo was disappointed in himself. No, Karin would've been the one who was disappointed. Ichigo just flat-out fucking hated himself for what he'd done yesterday. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, feeling self-animosity rising as the remembrance came back to him…

_Ichigo picked up the glass from the kitchen floor and dug it into his skin, dragging it across his long sleeved shirt, tearing it and immediately spilling the blood that chilled through his body, cutting so deep that he nearly sliced into the vital vein lying there. _

_It felt like he was in heaven. His body convulsed and his muscles went lax as a pleasured moan drawled past his lips and he stumbled backwards until he was left leaning against the unbalanced table, glass crunching under his feet._

_Blood bubbling to the surface and gushed down his arm in a rushed stream before splattering against the tile floor. His knees buckled and his eyes rolled to the back of his head, the broken shard of glass positioned at his vein was pushed deeper into his skin, and he threw his head back, more blood rolling over his tanned skin. The hand holding the glass fell inertly to his side._

_His weak knees had given out under him and he collapsed painfully on the floor, sharp edges of broken glass cutting through his khaki pants and piercing his skin. He stayed like this for what felt like hours, moaning and panting breathlessly. Then his eyes fluttered opened slowly, glazed in nostalgia, and all he could see was white. He tried to focus his greyed vision and blinked twice, his labored panting controlled. _

_Ichigo's upward pointed head rolled limply on his shoulders and fell against his chest. His blurred vision slowly began to come back into focus, and absently his eyes searched manically until they laid upon the broken glass lodged into his arm, blood spewing from the contusion around it, and his eyes widened, quivering. His pants became frantic._

_He only stared at himself losing blood, too shaken to comprehend how he had ever gotten to this point. A million and one questions flooded his mind at once. He was confused, desperately trying to perceive why he'd done it after Karin asked him, begged_ him not to. He promised. He promised he wouldn't.__

_His eyes still wide, his hand, numbly, clutched the long piece of glass and carelessly ripped it from his bleeding vein, and a pained hiss escaped between his gnashing teeth. Blood started to gusher out quickly. His chest rose and fell hard. _

_It was hard to breathe._

_"Why can't…I breathe?" He whispered. Again his eyes manically searched purposeless until he discerned the small puddle of blood beginning to pool around him, soaking through his pants and feeling it wet and stain his knees with betrayal. "Karin…I'm so sorry." He cursed himself. He winced when he rose from his knees, glass having cut into his kneecaps. _

_Ichigo stumbled awkwardly towards the hallway bathroom, using his other hand to stop his blood from rushing out of his arm. He grabbed one of the towels from the hallway closet and wrapped it around his arm before tucking it tightly in place. Then he grabbed a few more and some chemicals from under the bathroom sink, and then he weakly sauntered back to the kitchen._

_He cleaned up the broken glass, and afterwards fell to his hands and knees and scrubbed at the bloodied floor. It took him an hour as he made sure no evidence was left behind. _

_Not a single drop of blood or piece of glass used to cut him was left behind._

_And he was once again alone with his thoughts._

Ichigo looked out the window.

He had been cutting himself every day since the day Karin begged him to stop, and afterwards it was the same routine every time. First he'd relish in his release, and then he'd become confused and frantic that Karin would find out and be heartbroken, then he'd feel shame festering inside him before he forced himself to clean up the mess.

Yesterday he had dedicated himself towards a new resilience, and vowed that he would be strong for his little sister. Unfortunately enough though, the sad part about his new resolve was that it was broken not even an hour later, and he had ended up cutting himself another two more times before Karin got home from school and soccer practice. He cleaned up the mess though and was in his bed asleep when she got home.

His eyes narrowed.

He hated that he was so weak. He hated that he couldn't give his sister her brother back even after everything else that's been taken from her. He hated that he saw what he saw that night; the images that permanently etched themselves into his memory. He hated that no one would be able to ever understand anything about what he had to go through, that he had his life taken away from him, that hate was what took his life from him and now consumed him along with fear and confusion.

He couldn't stand it. No one would ever know what Hell on Earth meant unless they took on his name and stole his identity Ichigo Kurosaki. And at this point, he welcomed the idea of someone else taking over his life, but he knew that no one would ever understand the meaning of pain, of loss. And not one fucking person would ever know the meaning of abandonment like he knew it, and he fucking hated that he had to be the one to know what it all truly meant, that his life was the one that had to be taken away.

He clenched his teeth tighter. He fucking hated _everything! _Why the hell did it have to be him? Why'd it have to be__ _his ___life that was taken away? Karin's? Why was it that his family had to be the one to be ripped in half and destroyed? Why was it that__ _his ___happiness had to be the one taken away and replaced with hatred and confusion? Why the___ _hell ____was____ _he _____the one who had to be asking,_____ _why______? Why was he chosen to know what Hell felt like?

...

... ...

Fuck it. He didn't want to know why. He just wanted things to go back to the way they were. He'd give anything to have his imperfect family back; his psycho dad and his loving mom back with him. But he knew…he knew that they'd never come back to him.

He sighed and pushed bad memories to the back of his mind before he turned back to Ukitake, figuring that he'd listen to something the man had to say and take some notes. His pencil jumped from line to line on his paper, scratching lead markings against it.

Fifteen minutes later, and abruptly the door slid open. Ukitake's sentence was cut short and the entire class fell into a suspended silence when the hooded intruder sauntered into the room. He drew back the hood of his dark, holey hoodie, and as if startled, students gasped when he revealed the tresses of dark blue hair in its usual untamable style. The unruly blue locks fell around his face.

"J-Jeagerjaques?" Ukitake questioned, almost as if testing his own sanity. He was stunned—everyone was. "What a…surprise." Grimmjow didn't speak.

He only looked.

Ichigo noticed a while ago that he always only looked.

Hardly ever spoke.

_Grimmjow Jeagerjaques._ Ichigo recited to himself. He was in no way interested in the futureless delinquent, otherwise known by the student body as the "Blue Demon". Apparently the name derived from his ever so blue persona; from his peculiar lengthy blue hair, to his bright cerulean eyes, to his usual depressing demeanor that seemed to suck the life out of any and everybody that came close to him.

Everyone knew the, or rather heard about the "Blue Demon". Everyone knew the name, Grimmjow Jeagerjaques, but no one actually knew a damn thing about him; only rumors of where he's been and what he's done.

Ichigo had heard a lot about him, like he was a drug dealer and that's why he didn't come to school often. Ichigo heard that he was a gangbanger who had killed at least six guys in his past, stolen a few cars in his lifetime, that he was convicted for grand theft auto, a variable amount of un-prescribed weed and cocaine, that his sister was a prostitute, his mother was a junky, his father was a good Samaritan that was trying to hold his family together, and that Grimmjow himself was a crack baby, and a thousand other rumors.

Rumors spread about the guy like fire in a dry forest in California; rapid and unyielding. It could've all very well had been true, but Ichigo didn't believe any of it. He didn't care in the first place, but he wasn't going to believe what he heard from the grapevines, not when half the time the damn grapes were rotten and the vines were covered with thorns.

Ichigo knew that most of the shit was a fucking lie anyways and completely off base. He wouldn't believe dumb shit like that. To believe shit so ridiculous would mean that, Grimmjow Jeagerjaques's life was just as fucked up as his was.

No. He could spit at the thought for ever crossing his mind.

To hell with that, no one knew what pain was, what life was, except him.

Not his "friends". Not his instructors. Not his neighbors. Not the lazy ass brown haired man at the convenient store up the street from his house who Ichigo, on rare occasions, would hold very short conversations with from time to time.

And certainly some hopeless ass blue-haired futureless half-breed of Japanese and some other shit Ichigo didn't know, knew how pain felt. He'd be damned if he knew, or anyone else knew a damn thing about life, about pain, about loss. The only thing Grimmjow Jeagerjaques lost was hope for a prominent, or even a second-rate future.

The blunette hadn't been in school for nearly a month, but surprisingly the truancy officers weren't contacted to investigate his rather strange disappearance. Ichigo assumed that it was because, statistically, and observantly, he wasn't going to graduate and make anything of himself anyways so it would've been a waste of time and didn't matter. Also, probably because he was eighteen and it was his own decision to make. Ichigo didn't know, but neither did he really give a damn.

"Would you…care to explain your tardiness?" Ukitake inquired, and Ichigo almost scoffed at the inquiry. His tardiness? As if he hasn't been gone for nearly four weeks, but he wants to know why he was tardy. Ah. The indecency of stupidity was quite an enigma. But he said nothing, because he noticed how Ukitake's face pinched in contemplation, seemingly catching the irrelevance of his question.

Grimmjow didn't reply right away, Ichigo noticed, instead, Ichigo noted his scuffed black and light blue Chuck's squeaking across the floor as he walked up the aisle to his usual desk in the back by the window, three seats behind him as Ichigo sat somewhere in the middle of the room, but close enough to the window so he could gaze out of it if he got bored.

"Mr. Jeagerjaques, would you care to explain—"

"No…not really." His voice was thick, scratchy, as if he hadn't spoken at all in the three weeks he'd been gone. Students, again, gasped their astonishments. This guy was just full of surprises apparently. Showing up unannounced and then actually _speaking. _

Hmph. _Hell must've frozen over earlier then we all expected. _Ichigo mused to himself. The other students, who weren't shocked in a stupor, started murmuring to their friends about this new rumor and that new rumor that they heard about the blunette in the interval of his absence.

"I heard he was snorting crack in a back alley with two cats and a crackhead." Ichigo overheard someone murmur, and Ichigo's face dropped before a scowl set upon his face. _Where the hell do they get this shit from? _He glared at no one and turned away to glower out the window while everyone else continued, enthralled in whispering this slab of gossip from one person to another about the estranged delinquent as if he wasn't there and was fucking deaf.

Ichigo didn't care what the boy did in his spare time. He wasn't interested in him at all. He had never been interested in the guy like everyone else was, or in what anyone else thought about him. He had his own damn problems to worry about.

Problems. So many fucking problems.

Problems that no one would be able to understand if he told them.

Problems that were more important than any of his so-called "friends", and especially far more important than some guy he didn't even know. He and Karin were the only ones. He was convinced that they were the only ones who could even possibly fathom the reality of life and the hell it could put one through.

Problems. So many fucking problems.

Why the hell would he concern himself with some hopeless failure that didn't know anything about life and wasn't going to be anything in life anyways? It made no sense to care.

Ichigo didn't care about anyone. If they didn't understand life, if they didn't understand the pain it had the power to cause, then he didn't care about any of them because they wouldn't be able to understand him. He was convinced that no one would ever know like he knew. No one would ever be able to understand all of what he'd been forced to live through, to see, to feel.

He was convinced that he would never care for anyone else. No one but Karin…because she knew. _God! How he _hated that she knew!__

**X:~/~:X**

Grimmjow was settled into the seat that was furthest to the back and next to the window.

Everyone was staring at him.

Everyone always stared at him.

No matter where he went, people always stared at him.

He fucking hated it.

What the hell was so goddamn captivating about him that they had to stare so fucking hard! What, because he has blue hair? So the fuck what? The kid three rows in front of him has orange hair, but he didn't see any of them gawking at him like he had grown another goddamn head.

Grimmjow glowered at the oranget kid who was staring idly out the window, a bored expression descried across his face like nothing was wrong, ignoring him as if everyone else weren't staring. Then, once realization hit him, Grimmjow's glower disappeared.

He wasn't staring at him.

_…He's ignoring me…_

The redhead didn't care, wasn't interested in the unnatural blue tresses that darkened Grimmjow's face.

Grimmjow felt actual relief in the discovery. Now maybe if all these other bastards could just catch the hint and shut the fuck up, or else he might have to make them. He growled under his breath, his glower returning to his features.

"Mr. Jeagerjaques, please see me after class." Ukitake told him. Grimmjow said nothing. Instead he just leaned back in his seat, his long hair draping over his forehead and covering one of his eyes.

Ukitake picked up his lesson where he had left off and continued lecturing unimportance. If Grimmjow remembered correctly, this was that son of a bitch that only fucking talked all hour and didn't know when to shut the hell up. He was fucking irritating.

The students staring at him turned in their seats, finally complacent with the fact that the estranged "Blue Demon" was once again back in their presence. Yeah. Grimmjow knew about the name, and quite honestly, he liked it. It was pretty damn simple and summed up enough about his life in a coded type of way. Then again, if any of them ever met his bastard father then the name would really make a lot more sense.

Grimmjow noted the oranget still staring out the window. He didn't know his name, but his hair was enough of a reminder as to who he was. He was usually quiet, but Grimmjow didn't know if that was still the case after almost a month, but adjudicating from his aloof disposition he would deem that it was still a fact.

He didn't really pay much attention to the kid, but if he remembered correctly, he remembered overhearing that his name was something along the lines of a berry. It was something. But he was normally quiet and reserved for the most part, smart too, although unlike that fucking condescending pink haired fucker, Szayel he recalled, who was in his third hour class, the orange haired kid didn't boast on and on to show off. One of these days, showing off is going to get that prissy little bastard killed.

Grimmjow would love to be the one to do it too.

Grimmjow noticed that the oranget wasn't even remotely immersed in the lesson as he continued to stare forlornly through the window. He wasn't only ignoring him, but everyone.

His eyes were light brown…almost hazel.

They were like his mother's…

…the minute before she died.

They were jaded, bleak…torn.

They were his mother's eyes.

Grimmjow sighed softly to himself, the orange head of hair becoming a blur as he became less and less important to him, his mind wandering elsewhere until the only thing his eyes perceived was nothingness.

Nothing at all.

It was somewhat, or completely, ironic that he should be seeing the only emotion he had ever come to feel in his existence.

…nothing...

**X:~/~:X**

"Ah. Grimmjow, it is nice of you to join us," Aizen, his Psychology sensei, smiled. He hated the guy. It was something about him that rubbed Grimmjow the wrong way, bad vibes practically exuded from the man. "How long has it been since you last graced us all with your presence? Three weeks…four weeks now, yes?"

Aizen was apparently fucked up in the head. Any other teacher would've scolded and reprimanded him, but no, the asshole was actually smiling. "Your seat in the back has been awfully lonely back there all on its own, won't you accompany it?"

Grimmjow's eyes darkened, and he felt a subtle growl rumbling in his chest, but he bit his tongue and stalked to the back in his seat. His seat was cold. It could've been from being vacant for so long, or more so likely it was because Aizen's room was always cold.

Cold.

It was something Grimmjow figured resembled the man. Something about Aizen was cold, frozen…dead. Maybe it was his sanity. That would make a lot of sense. The man's sanity was no longer attainable. It was definitely gone considering the shrewd smirk that curved on the man's lips, and this time Grimmjow snarled under his breath, placating himself slightly.

"It is nice to have you back with us, Jeagerjaques-san. Please, never leave us all in such suspense for so long, hm?" Grimmjow scoffed and glared directly into his skull. Aizen hummed, seemingly complacent. "In any case, let us all proceed and open our books to pages 223 and read silently to ourselves."

The crinkling of crisp pages in new textbooks flipping resonated throughout the room. It was the most irritating noise he had ever come to hear in his life, aside from the drunken slurs his father spewed in his inebriated conditions.

Grimmjow didn't have a book, and he didn't want one.

He hated them.

They were stupid.

His grandfather once told him, before he perished (while he was living he was Grimmjow's family's only source of income), that books were the key to knowledge and held every answer to every question anyone could possibly think to inquiry.

Grimmjow had a lot of unanswered questions about life that he was sure a book couldn't answer for him. Like why it is his life had to be the one that got fucked up, and when was it going to be over? A book, he knew, couldn't print out an answer to those questions.

When he was a child his mother read him bedtime tales and lulled him to sleep with soft lullaby songs. He loved books then. When everything in his life was good, and his father wasn't an abusive drunk, and his sister wasn't some trifling little whore looking for a couple of bucks to satisfy her pimp and possible addiction, and when his mother wasn't dead and beyond his reach. He loved them then when his life wasn't fucked up.

_Grimmjow was four years old. He loved books, stories, fiction. He loved the characters; their smiles that beamed off of every picture on every page, the happy endings, the amendable bonds that grew between each character, and everything else that flourished the crisp, thin pages. _

_He would daydream about one day writing his own story where all of his characters would have all that they desired, and more. They would cry, and they would bleed, but their endings would be undisputed, always ending in their favor. He loved imagining just being in their worlds._

_But then, as usual, his father took that dream away from, and made him hate imagining, dreaming, reading. It was two weeks after Grimmjow's grandfather, and his father's father died, that his father really started drinking away the misery that the family's only source of income was burned into ashes and resting in an urn atop the mantle in the living room._

_His father came home after staying out all night, intoxicated. He had burst into his room where he was lying in bed and his mother was reading him his favorite story. She had stopped midsentence, and both of them turned to look at him, noting the swirls of fire dancing in his eyes before he erupted into a manic, screaming slurs of obscenities and calling her and him derogatory names. _

_"Why the fuck ya in her' readin' ta this lit'le girl," he belched to his woman. At the age of four Grimmjow's hair was longer than his father's, falling past his buttocks, until the age of five when stress and life began shredding the long and luscious blue strands. "Bitch! Get'cha ass in tha' room. I'm ready ta fuck!" He glared then and forced her up onto her feet by her arm when she didn't move._

Grimmjow gritted his teeth as he remembered every detail, vividly as it happened so many years ago. His mother fought against his father's defiance, speaking softly that Grimmjow wouldn't be able to sleep without the usual stories she orated.

_"I gotta story fa ya Grimmy boy," his father said somberly, smirking. "Once ther' was a bitch_," he jerked his mother by the arm more violently as indication. Grimmjow's tiny frame shuddered in fear as his big blue eyes quivered and he pulled his covers up over his trembling lips. "Who wasn't in da fuckin'_ mood_ ta slob her man's dick clean 'cuz she wanted ta read ta 'er lit'le snot-nosed faggot ass son!" His father glared between the two of them.____

_Grimmjow's big blue eyes widened as he watched his father's hand raise over his mother, anticipation accumulating in his chest, and swiftly the hand came down and slated against her face. Her neck jerked abruptly on her shoulders as the loud smack resounded luridly. _

_"…the end!" His father tossed her against the bed by her son's feet, on hands and knees, before turning and slamming the door close behind him. Grimmjow stared at his mother, his eyes still wide, and her sea green hair cascading over her face, sheltering it._

_She brushed strands of hair behind her ear with her fingers and turned to face him, smiling. A thin line of blood trailed from the cut on her lip and down the corner of her mouth. She stood and wiped away the evidence of abuse with the back of her hand. Grimmjow stared at her, almost expectantly._

_She recollected the book, flipped to the previous page and continued reading after sitting back on the edge of the bed. No words were spoken, save for the printed words his mother recited as though nothing had happened at all. _

The sad part about that night was the fact that nothing had happened. It would come to become the usual abuse. That same night Grimmjow remembered (after he pretended to be asleep and his mother left) the potent pounding of bodies slamming into walls and the shattering of picture frames when they fell and hit the floor.

_The next morning, while Grimmjow sat at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal, his feet dangling over the floor in the chair, she frigidly sauntered into the house from the arctic, snowless winter air, shivering as she massaged her arms warm. He noted her cheeks were swollen, purpled and red; blood crusted to one side of her lips._

His father had thrown her out. He'd left her outside like some disobedient and untrained _dog. _Then, all he felt was sadness as he stared at his mother's shivering body under guilt tinted blue eyes, but now, as he remembered it all, he felt disgust and hatred, blinding rage that felt tangible under his muscles, his teeth subtly gnashing out his resentments.

Grimmjow had so many memories, so many monsters hidden in his shadowed past, all of which he prefer would stay in the past and die. But he knew all too well that God wouldn't allow that, instead He was sure to have him suffering his life in the depths of everlasting Hell longer than open the gates of Grace to someone as lowly as himself.

Grimmjow damned Him for the life he was given; for the father that bore him, for the sister that deserted him, and for the mother he would never see again. He _damned _Him for abandoning him when He was needed most!

_Crinkle crinkle whoosh. _Grimmjow cringed. The crisp pages of textbooks murmured to him, each resurfacing some memory of abuse, of neglect, and reminding him of the life he was forsaken to have.

Grimmjow bared his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut tight.

_Damn Him…_

* * *

><p><strong>It's been a while, I know. However, I can't say that the next chapter won't take a minute to write either, but you know good reviews are always used as motivation for me, sooo…yeah. <strong>

**—Review please! Thanks!**


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